


Independence Day

by casspeach



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Friendship, Gen, Loneliness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 19:16:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1719599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casspeach/pseuds/casspeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The voice that startled him out of watching the Independence Day fireworks while holding himself rigidly to attention and trying his damnedest to stay in the here and now, was quiet and unassuming, familiar, and welcome. Steve stopped the litany of '2013, it's 2013, it's 2013 and you're in New York' that he'd been forcing through his brain for the past half hour and turned to look at the man who'd spoken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Independence Day

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hc-bingo amnesty. Prompt for this one was post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Captain Rogers?" 

The voice that startled him out of watching the Independence Day fireworks while holding himself rigidly to attention and trying his damnedest to stay in the here and now, was quiet and unassuming, familiar, and welcome. Steve stopped the litany of '2013, it's 2013, it's 2013 and you're in New York' that he'd been forcing through his brain for the past half hour and turned to look at the man who'd spoken.

"Agent Coulson," he said quietly, bending down so as not to disturb the other dignitaries' enjoyment of the display.

Coulson's face went through a series of complicated and mostly-hidden emotions. "Might I borrow you for just a moment?"

Steve wasn't sure he was fit to assemble, but he was desperate to, to do anything that would take him away from this place, to have something else to concentrate on.

"Of course." He let Coulson lead him away from the viewing platform and into the building. He could feel the tension bleeding from his shoulders and spine with every step into quiet and steady light that they took, and even if this really was a momentary thing, it was a welcome respite. "Do we need to assemble?"

"No," Coulson said, with a faint smile as he opened the door to the stairs and gestured him down. "No, I just thought perhaps you could do with a break. I hope I didn't presume too much."

Steve couldn't speak for a moment, overwhelmed. He expected to be led to the ballroom where the pre-fireworks banquet had been held, or the suite where the pre dinner drinks party had been, but Coulson kept going past those floors, to the ordinary part of the hotel. He stepped out into the corridor first and scanned it, but, as expected, everyone else was watching the celebrations.

The room Coulson took them to was just an ordinary hotel room, nice, but nothing out of the ordinary. It was next to the stairs and self-contained, no interconnecting doors or separate sitting room. Just two double beds and a bathroom. The drapes - both decorative and blackout, were drawn, and the TV was tuned to a radio station playing jazz.

"Thank you," Steve said. "I don't think I'd even realized how bad that was."

"A lot of them are really quite like tracer flare, aren't they?" Coulson said easily, as if this was a normal sort of conversation about fireworks.

"Yeah," Steve breathed. He sank down onto the bed nearest the door and sat there with his head hanging for a moment. He had half a mind to leave it at that, but it would be nice to talk to somebody, and Coulson had noticed him. Coulson had seen his distress, seen _him_ , and understood. Maybe he'd understand this as well. "The crazy thing is, that isn't even the worst part," he said, lifting his head to check Coulson's reaction. 

Coulson was sitting on the chair by the desk, relaxed but attentive. Clearly listening.

"The worst thing is I get so - afterwards, when the nightmares and the flashbacks and the feeling like I'm in two places, two times, at once, fades - I just get so homesick."

He couldn't keep looking at Coulson, but equally he didn't seem to be able to stop talking. It felt like a dam had breached. 

"Tony tries, I know he does, but sometimes it feels like he's building me a museum to live in, and nothing smells right. And there's just, there's too much choice. In my day there was just bread. I guess maybe not for the likes of Stark but for most people. And we could either afford it, or we couldn't.

"Mostly we couldn't, which makes it all the more stupid to be homesick. I mean I was hungry nearly all of the time back then, and cold, and sick."

He dragged his hands through his hair and groaned. 

"So yeah, the fireworks are bad. But it's what gets dredged up afterwards that's the real killer."

Coulson was quiet for a little while, long enough that the tune on the radio stopped and segued into commercials, but Steve was done. 

"You know you don't have to go to these things," Coulson said. "They're invitations, not orders."

Steve sighed. 

"It's America's birthday," he said. 

"But it's also yours. You could always use that as a reason to decline. People would - well not all of them would understand, because there are a lot of entitled people in the world, but-"

"Right. The old 'spending a quiet celebration with my close friends and family' deal," Steve said. He didn't mean to sound bitter, but he knew that he did. Bitter and defeated and ancient. "And I know that makes it sound like I don't think I have any friends, which isn't the case."

"Anyone crass enough to question your RSVP doesn't deserve you at their party," Coulson insisted. Steve didn't know what to say to that so he ignored it. It was probably some weird thing about slighting Captain America or something, and he definitely shouldn't let it make him feel warm.

"It isn't even just that anyway," Steve said, rolling his head like it'll help with the weight on his shoulders. "I don't fit here now. I don't know where I belong, like I used to. I don't know where I can go to just be me."

He wasn't even making sense to himself now, but Coulson was kind enough not to call him on it.

"If there's anything," Coulson started, and Steve closed his eyes, sure he knew what was coming. Sometimes he thought SHIELD was trying to push him into asking to be frozen again. Except Coulson didn't continue. Not for a long moment, and when he did he sounded hesitant, uncertain in a way that was completely different from when they'd first met. "Please understand, I'm not here as a part of SHIELD right now. I'm not Agent Coulson, just Phil, and _I'm_ offering. I'm asking if there's anything I can do to help."

Steve was honestly a little surprised. He'd thought Coulson was above this sort of thing, but maybe the Captain America notch on his bedpost was just too good a chance to pass up. At least this way he would be using Steve just as much as Steve used him.

Because Steve was so desperately, horribly lonely.

He put one hand out on Coulson's knee, and the other around the back of his neck and hauled him out of the chair. Coulson went strangely still, pliant, and he put one hand up between them, over Steve's heart. But he didn't even try to hold Steve off, just let Steve run his mouth up from the collar of his shirt to the hollow below his ear. It was kind of an awkward position for Coulson, one knee on the mattress to stop himself toppling over, and the other foot on the floor between Steve's, but the man was surprisingly graceful, and, Steve could tell now, stronger under the suits he wore than was obvious.

Even now, with a sure thing, Steve didn't really know how to take this forward, how to ask for what he wanted. He'd never needed to before. 

But Coulson had seen him at the gala, and he could apparently see some of what he needed now, because he put his free hand on the back of Steve's neck, and his fingers scratched comfort into the skin there.

"Steve," Coulson murmured, and it wasn't the giddy squeal of a fan getting unexpected access to an idol (bond-selling had its own groupies, which had been kind of a surprise), and neither was it the desperate whisper of lust.

It was, Steve thought, almost an endearment, but tinged with enough question that Steve had to tip his head up to see Coulson's face. 

Coulson was frowning at him, the warm but perplexed expression he wore quite frequently around all of the other Avengers, but not usually Steve. He cupped Steve's cheek in his free hand.

"Is this going to help?" he asked, half question, half admonishment.

Which wasn't 'don't', and wasn't 'keep going' and put all the onus on Steve, which was, frankly, a bit terrifying.

But not so terrifying as the thought of him taking his hands off Steve and walking away. 

"It's already helping," Steve admitted, because it was true, and it seemed only fair to be honest with a man who was willing to back up a kind offer of help with free access to his body if Steve wanted it.

It was mostly just the physical contact, with no fighting and no pretext, and no one here who would judge Steve's manners as stiff or old-fashioned. He'd left behind a time of camaraderie and woken into one where every gesture, every touch could be recorded and analyzed and pored over for hidden meaning. 

He'd left behind, more importantly, a person who had always seen him, and had been as free and easy with his physical affection for Steve as he'd been with the dames he picked up wherever he went.

Coulson's hands stayed where they were, but his eyes went soft and sad.

And then he nodded, a tiny single movement of his head.

"Okay then," he said, and stepped back.

Steve heard himself make an awkward awful mewling sound before he realized Coulson was shrugging out of his jacket and unknotting his tie. Steve watched him drape the tie over the back of the chair, and toe off his shoes. 

There was a rising tide of anticipation in Steve's gut, but it wasn't…it wasn't the kind of overwhelming urgent need that he'd experienced in the past, that he tried to duplicate in his head with his hand around himself offering meager distraction from how lost he was.

Coulson was far from unattractive, and Steve knew, from watching him around Clint and Natasha especially, but the others as well, that he could be, and usually was, incredibly kind.

It probably wasn't very heroic to need that so badly.

"Do you, uh," Steve said. "Should I take anything off?"

He glanced down at the tux he was wearing, and wondered if Coulson would have rather he was in his uniform.

"Your shoes," Coulson said with a shrug. "And anything else you need to be comfortable."

Which, okay, Steve acknowledged he was perhaps not the most experienced, or adventurous, of people, sex-wise, especially not compared to say Stark, or some of the things he'd seen on the internet. But some amount of nudity was expected, surely. Unless Coulson thought they were going to just rut against each other fully clothed, and that, that could be fun, that Steve did know, but he wasn't keyed up enough for that, and he kind of doubted Coulson was either.

Maybe the lack of suit was a deal breaker after all.

Coulson climbed up onto the bed, and took his watch off to set it on the nightstand. He arranged himself sitting up against the headboard and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. Then he stopped and gave Steve a questioning look.

Steve bent to take his shoes off, mostly to get away from being looked at as though he was fragile. Feeling it was bad enough, knowing someone else could see it was both wonderful and terrible, just as it had always been. He pulled at the end of the bow tie Natasha had tied for him and left the ends hanging, and loosened the first couple of buttons of his shirt.

But it felt weird, stripping further while Coulson watched him, with that exact same calm and sympathetic expression on his face.

Coulson patted the pillow next to him.

"Want me to put the TV on?" he asked. 

Steve had seen some of the channels these hotels got, the films a person could watch, but Coulson couldn't be suggesting that, could he? 

"No, the, uh, the wireless is fine," he said.

Never one to run away from anything, be it a fight with a bully or an awkward encounter he'd sort of asked for, he clambered up to lie where Coulson had suggested. It was nice in a way, just to rest for a moment, but it was also, wasn't it, kind of unusual?

Steve fidgeted a little, and put his hand on Coulson's knee.

"Um, I just wanna," he said. "I'm not good at this, apparently still, so I just wanna check. You did understand what I was offering, right?"

He almost couldn't bear to but he made himself look at Coulson's face, and tried not to bristle at the man's expression.

Coulson shrugged. He hadn't moved away from Steve's hand, but he hadn't put his own over it or anything either.

"I was trying to tactfully give you an out," he said.

"An out?" Steve repeated. "Why would I want…I kinda figured you'd be the last person to turn down a chance to sleep with Captain America."

Coulson looked actually pained at that, and he picked Steve's hand up off his knee and put it carefully back on the comforter with a little pat. Too late, Steve realized he'd been pretty insulting without meaning to, but before he could offer an apology Coulson spoke.

"I am aware that I didn't comport myself very well when we first met," he said, still with the facial expression of a man eating lemons. "And I daresay you have since heard worse from your teammates, but I hope you can believe me when I say I have never actually wanted to sleep with Captain America."

Steve felt his face flush hot, because oh, _oh_ how stupidly, mortifyingly… "Wow, okay, so that was incredibly arrogant of me, huh?" he said.

Coulson gave a tiny self-deprecating tilt of his head, but at least his expression had evened back out.

"Well, okay, maybe 'never' is too strong," he confessed with a boyish smirk that was there and gone but delightful all the same. "I read my first Cap comic when I was eight. It was the real deal, found in a box of World War Two memorabilia that was in my grandfather's attic."

He snuck a look at Steve and seemed to steel himself to continue.

"I wanted to be Bucky Barnes so badly when I was younger. I knew I'd never be, well, _you_ , but your sidekick? That was an achievable dream to eight year old me."

Steve laughed. It sounded a bit strangled, a bit closer to a sob than he might have liked, but there was real humor in it, and thinking of Bucky, well it still hurt, but like an ache rather than the gaping wound it sometimes was.

"Bucky hated what they did to him in those comics," he said. "He never made a stink about it or anything - he was always a better soldier than me - but did he ever gripe? 'I'm a cold-hearted sniper, Steve, and a grown man. Look at what they've got me _wearing_ '."

Coulson smiled, the genuine quiet smile he used around Barton and Romanov.

Steve wasn't sure, but he didn't think it was because he'd just gifted the man insider info on his childhood heroes.

"Thank you," he said. "For, well, for the best birthday I've had in quite a while."

"I think that may actually be the most tragic thing I've heard in a long time," Coulson said. "And I'd remind you that I know Agents Barton and Romanov quite well. Next year we will do something you actually want to do," Phil promised. 

Steve didn't know if he meant just him and Phil, or everyone, and he was surprised to find he didn't mind either way. 

In fact he'd maybe prefer the former. 

"See, this is where I'd ordinarily make some smart ass comment about how good it'd be to spend my birthday at a game at Ebbets Field," Steve said. "And then eat burgers at a joint that's been a parking lot for longer than you've been alive."

Phil shrugged good-naturedly.

"You can, if you like," he said. "I wouldn't mind."

"Kind of ungrateful though."

"People are sometimes," Phil said. "Especially when they're hurting."

There was a lot to unpack in such a simple sentence, and Steve couldn't help but glance at Phil's face to see if he was really setting himself out as a punching bag, but he wasn't, of course he wasn't, he was just doing what he'd done earlier. Seeing Steve, really seeing him, as a person, and not just an icon, or a throwback, or whatever the hell the rest of the world saw when they looked at him.

"I'm not even sure what I'd want to do," Steve said. "I think that's partly why I just accept these invitations. It's easier than choosing something awful as a birthday party, or, well, having your birthday be the 4th of July was never that easy, honestly."

Phil cupped his hand around the side of Steve's face. He had to lie down a little and turn towards him to do it, and he was frowning. Steve pushed into the touch, just barely, before he could stop himself, and the frown deepened.

"I hope you know that there isn't one single person on your team who wouldn't drop everything to celebrate your birthday with you," he admonished. "And not just your team for that matter."

Steve didn't know that, not really. He suspected if he celebrated any other day the others would turn up out of duty and somewhat limited social circles. But Clint and Thor both loved fireworks. Bruce hated them and tended to make himself scarce for the week either side. And Tony always had a company party to go to on the fourth. Which left Natasha, and Steve wasn't sure he'd manage to spend an evening just with her without falling back on old habits and humiliating himself.

On the other hand he'd seen that expression on Agent Coulson's face before. Even Tony wouldn't push against it.

"I guess," he said, not willing to outright lie.

Phil didn't buy it, and sighed. "Well I suppose I have a year to convince you," he said. "And to try and find some not too unbearably awful venue and activities."

"See now you're just making me sound ungrateful," Steve complained, but his heart wasn't in it really.

"Sorry," Phil said, with about the same level of sincerity. "And you know, if you decide that there actually isn't anything you want to do to celebrate your birthday, and you choose instead to hole up somewhere and wait it out - well that's okay too."

But Steve knew that wouldn't do. He couldn't continue to live in the past, grieving for something that no longer existed, for people who weren't alive. This was a second chance, and the size of it had just been too colossal to face, but now he had a time frame, and a goal. All he needed was a strategy.

"No," he said. "That won't be….We fought for this world to be able to exist, right? That's what it was all for. Kinda ungrateful of me not to at least try and find the good things in it."

Phil smiled at him, warm and genuine, and Steve ducked his head.

"Was that Captain America enough for you?" he asked, glancing up from under his eyelashes.

Phil made a considering noise. "I don't know. I think maybe we'll have to try it again, with the shield, and the uniform," he said. "I'm going to order room service. Did you eat already?"

Steve groaned, and pulled the pillow over his head. "It was a buffet. People look at me weird at buffets. And everybody wanted to talk to me, and I can never quite time the eating and talking thing right."

"SHIELD actually has classes for that kind of thing, you know. Natasha and I taught Clint, and if he can be taught, I am absolutely certain you can too." Steve thought back to the social events the Avengers had attended en masse, and must have frowned. "Just because you are in possession of a particular skill set, doesn't mean you have to use it all the time."

Steve laughed, and Phil ordered room service, and it was nice, comfortable, easy in a way not much was nowadays that Steve had found. He hid in the bathroom when the food arrived, more because he was enjoying feeling relaxed, like he didn't have to be what Tony called 'on' and Clint referred to as 'in performance mode' than anything else. Not that he'd have minded especially, if the busboy had gotten the wrong idea about two men in a hotel room together, not even if he'd realized one of them was none other than Captain America.

And it was that realization that made him put his hand over Phil's to stop him removing the cloches from their dinners.

"I just wanted to ask you something before we start," he said. "Before I lose my nerve. And the thing I wanted to ask was…you know you said I should find something I wanted to do for next year? I wondered if you'd like to help me. Find it. Together."

Phil's expression was kind, but a little bemused, not that Steve could exactly blame him.

He cleared his throat, and tried to think how Bucky would have done this. It was as helpful now as it had been in the thirties and forties.

"I know you said you didn't want to sleep with Captain America," Steve said. "But I think I'd kind of like the opportunity to see if I could make you want to sleep with Steve Rogers."

Phil ducked his head, bashful and gorgeous and at least hopefully going to be more polite about letting him down than any of Bucky's girls had ever been.

"I think if you can promise me you'll never refer to yourself in the third person like that again," Phil said. "Then you wouldn't have to try very hard at all."

Steve took his hand away and nodded. "Steve thinks that's a romantic challenge even he can rise to," he said with what he hoped was a rakish grin.

It was apparently appealing enough, because Phil shook his head, eyes dropped demurely to the table in front of him, and smiled. When he looked back up there was warmth in his expression, and Steve figured even if this didn't go anywhere he'd still have an enjoyable year. Who knew, maybe he could even look forward to his next birthday.


End file.
